U.S. companies are holding more cash in the bank than at any point on record, underscoring persistent worries about financial markets and about the sustainability of the economic recovery.

The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that nonfinancial companies had socked away $1.84 trillion in cash and other liquid assets as of the end of March, up 26% from a year earlier and the largest-ever increase in records going back to 1952.

The problem is reduced demand. Continuing unemployment means that the economy is not producing demand, so businesses are not willing to risk investing in meeting demand, which means they are not hiring, which means unemployment continues.

Seriously? They are already hoarding vast sums of money - probably trying to figure out how to offshore it with our jobs too - and the GOP plan, the highly desired plan of corporations and the their rich owners, is giving them more with tax cuts for the listless elites. That will just be a bigger welfare check than the ones we already floated Wall Street for doing absolutely nothing to fix the disaster they created.

Meanwhile, the screech of the typical village idiot corporate shills and deficit peacocks is getting shrill: